Saturday, November 21, 2009

TEN YEARS OF DRAWING SCOOBY! A Milestone In My Life!

I had completely forgotten all about what day today was when I woke up! November 21st marks my 10th Anniversary of drawing Scooby and the Gang and so I burned out this piece of celebration art around lunch time and just finished it after I slapped some color on it! What a milestone I think it is to me. It's a chapter of my life and in today's world how many people can say that they've worked on something that long? Most people change jobs and careers so often nowadays that when someone celebrates a long stretch on something, I think it's to be celebrated.

I still remember doing my Scooby audition back in September of 1999 while I was sitting in my cubicle in the art department of The Franklin Mint! I used their library to help me in trying to do as great an audition as I could to win the work and they had the perfect reference books to help with my backgrounds so I could create a creepy mood. As it turns out, I did win out and in late November I was working on Scooby full time for the next year and a half, which was great since The Mint was laying off and would be closed a year or so later. Every year I do a certain amount of Scooby stuff and I've never really gotten tired of it since I've been lucky enough to have gotten to work on many other licenses in-between while I recharged my creative batteries and avoided any kind of creative burnout.

So all in all, it's been a great ten years and the Mystery Machine rolls on as I ride in the back with Shaggy and Scoob! Pass the Scooby Snacks!

Hi Scott: I drew Scooby-Doo for many years back in the 1980s on UK annuals from World Distributors-International based in Manchester England. Back in those days it was colored with gouache paint. Placing the black ink line next to the slightly raised gouache edge was frustrating at times. The artist was responsible for the pencilling, inking and coloring - all for a flat rate page fee.I enjoyed working on Scooby Doo and I'm glad to see he's remained popular through the decades.

It's done a bit like that for the overseas comics I do for Scooby. There is a black line art file and then a separate color file that is placed under it when it is put together in Quark. They then take my word balloon files and over lay them on the top of the art. So it's 3 separate files for each page that I turn in. Whereas for DC Comics, it's just one file, which has the line art and color together.

Yes, indeed. I started in WB Consumer Products where I still do most of the work. I got into comics about 2004 or so after 4-5 years of doing work for Scooby everywhere else so comics is still only about 10% of my career. I am currently working on another Scooby script for DC right now. This is my first comic job for 2010. The last time I did a comic was back in June 2009.

About Me

Scott Neely is a professional illustrator and designer. For the last 17 years, he’s been a Scooby-Doo and Cartoon Network artist (working on such licensed properties as Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Courage The Cowardly Dog, The Grim Adventures of Billy And Mandy, Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Mike, Lu and Og, I.M. Weasel, and Sheep In The Big City). He has also worked on Pokemon, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Classic Winnie The Pooh, Handy Manny, Phineas And Ferb, Power Rangers Jungle Fury, Power Rangers RPM, Strawberry Shortcake, Bratz, Shrek The Third, Shrek Forever Ever, MegaMind, Kung Fu Panda 2, Madagascar 3, Tom And Jerry, Precious Moments Girls Club and The Li'l Learners Club. Scott is also the visual creator and production designer of Hollywood Hal & Rhinestone Al with the Wannabees, which is a project he co-created with Scott Innes (a.k.a. The voice of Scooby-Doo, Shaggy and Scrappy-Doo) and musician Jim Hogg. He creates all the artwork for the Hal & Al “live-action” TV show and “live” stage shows as well as all Hal & Al advertising, media and product design. For more Hal & Al info, go to www.halandal.com.